A World so Full of Hatred
by ArcAngel-liberty4all
Summary: Hermione's job hunting troubles after the war, and a look at prejudice and some of the atrocities Umbridge could have committed as head of the muggleborn registration committee.


Hermione bit her lip critically as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, 20 and a full year out of Hogwarts with nothing to show for it. She had received top marks in both her OWL's and NEWT's coming top in the year in Charms, Transfiguration and History of Magic, and according to Professor Flitwick, her grades gave her the best possible chance of what she had been applying for, a traineeship at a law firm. When after a year and a bit of applying, including most of her NEWT year and no positive replies, she looked at the qualifications of some of the lawyers and widened her application, applying to apprentice to get her mastery in charms or transfiguration as well as applying for law firms. Eventually someone told her what the problem was. She had interviewed at a law firm.

"Can I be frank with you Miss Granger?" The elderly gentleman who was heading up the panel said in a voice that had been gradually filling up with tobacco for 40 years.

"Please do sir" Hermione had replied, desperate for some honesty at last.

"Dumbledore was unrealistic in allowing so many muggleborns to attend Hogwarts. Because our client base is mostly made up of old pureblood families, as with most law firms, having a muggleborn as an employee in any position more important than secretary would simply be bad for business. I am truly sorry as you are certainly one of the more able and qualified candidates we have interviewed but employing a muggleborn, especially one as well-known as yourself, in such a difficult time would simply be a bad business decision, you understand. If I were you I'd apply to work for Gringotts, they regularly employ muggleborns although they're one of the only big companies who do"

Hermione did understand, she understood all too well. A year living in the real wizarding world, one not cushioned by Hogwarts or distorted by war had been eye opening. Time after time she'd watched as a pureblood less intelligent and qualified than she had walked into a position she'd applied for. It was humiliating really. To get her by she'd gotten a low wage job, one of the only ones she could find, harvesting common herbs and plants for potions ingredients. The work was hard, but it wasn't difficult and Hermione constantly had to find new ways to keep her mind occupied, new problems to solve, new books to read, but the days were so long and she was so tired in the evenings it was difficult. The company was understaffed.

The next day she was having lunch with a colleague, Adam, a hufflepuff muggleborn who had been in his seventh year when Hermione was in her first.

"Why is this place so understaffed when there are so many out there looking for work?"

"Well part of it's budgeting; I mean two years ago when the plant was expanded they didn't have to pay the workers. And then of course there's the fact that you won't find a pureblood who would lower themselves to this kind of work. And of course there's a shortage of muggleborns because of the camps."

"Wait a minute. What do you mean they didn't have to pay the workers, and what were the camps?" Hermione demanded as a dark sense of foreboding settled over her.

"It's not really surprising you don't know, it was kept out of the papers, and you were off being a hero with Potter and that lot."

"Not surprising I don't know what?" Hermione was getting angry now, it was unlike her not to know things and suddenly this man whom she had gotten along with was being dismissive of her."

"I suppose you know that Umbridge was rounding up muggleborns?" Hermione nodded. "Well after she took their wands they were sent to camps, put into barracks, worked really hard at jobs magic wasn't necessary to complete. This was one of the places staffed by her schemes. It wasn't much better for the families of muggleborns, if they were muggle, most of them were executed in their homes for having knowledge of our world, the best option was just having their memory modified to forget their, son, daughter, sister, or spouse, whatever. If the children were magical they were sent to special institutes where they were taught to hate their parents. The magical spouses of muggleborns got a better deal, they were just sent to Azkaban which is much more hospitable without the dementors."

Hermione stared blankly, trying to process the horrors that had taken place without her even noticing.

"Granger, when was the last time you spoke to anyone from Hogwarts, anyone muggleborn I mean?" Hermione couldn't think of the last time that had happened.

"I- I don't know" she said, horrified, realising that she had barely even thought of those people in months.

"Granger, two-thirds of the muggleborn population of Britain was killed, practically every child who was at Hogwarts at the time. Over eighty percent of the people who went into the camps never came back out again; most of those who survived either fled abroad or were in hiding. Most of the rest of the muggleborn population has emigrated, gone to more tolerant countries such as France or Italy in name for better job prospects but in truth to flee any atrocity of the sort that might happen again."

Hermione couldn't help it; she ran to the nearest bin and started vomiting. When she was finished Adam was there with a drink of water.

"Thanks" she said taking it with shaky hands. After she had stopped shaking somewhat she spoke again. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you survive and why are you still in the UK?"

"I probably survived because if I hadn't been muggleborn I would have been a slytherin. I was one of the first to be put in the camps, I saw the persecution and knew Voldemort was back so I modified my parents memories and gave them new identities, arranging a sabbatical for them from their workplaces, they didn't know who I was. I was put in the camps early on and it was horrid. The work was hard and long, they were executing people left right and centre for offences like 'looking funny' or 'blinking too much'.

"Most of the children, people younger than seventeen were executed on arrival. Of course they couldn't violate the labour laws and employ someone underage." The bitter sarcasm in his tone was unmistakable. "I probably survived because I was lucky and a good worker more than anything else. I kept my head down and my eyes open, all the guards were cruel, sadistic even, but some worked harder than others, and some were just lazy. They had such a low opinions of our intelligence and abilities they never changed the rota. One night I crept into the guard hut where the guard at the time, a lazy fat wizard well past his prime, one who liked raping some of the younger girls was fast asleep. I took his wand and I killed him. I don't regret it, he was a despicable animal who enjoyed making life hell for us and he deserved everything he got and more. I used his wand to disillusion myself and I apparated to a muggle town, where I robbed a few tills at a supermarket, stole some clothes etc, so I at least looked partway respectable, then I dumped the wand before they could use it to track me. Then I walked for 10 days, every couple of days, buying a little food in a muggle town. A wand's half your magical signature and tracking someone without it is difficult so I made it.

"I went to the house of an acquaintance, a girl I had known at Hogwarts, a little quiet, a little bookish but a good person, and kind, one of the kindest people I had ever met, everyone in our year liked her, she was someone you could always confide in and trust to listen with a sympathetic ear. The last reunion for our year had been at her house, so all I had to do was pray she hadn't moved.

"She hadn't, although I think I scared her half to death when I showed up on her doorstep one Saturday morning, filthy and soaked with rain. It took her some time to recognise me and stop holding me at wand point, but once she did she was an absolute angel. She treated my wounds and warded her basement with the fidelious, she made me the secret keeper so only she and I would be able to find it, she was good with spells." Adam stopped, lost in the past.

"If there was a raid, I'm sure they wouldn't have found me, but there wasn't, we were never more than passing acquaintances so she was never suspected of harbouring me and the rest of the muggleborns in my year were all… accounted for.

"Anyway she's pregnant now, and we're staying in the UK for the next couple of years so that she can have her mother's support when the baby's still very little. Then we'll probably emigrate to France if things don't get any better here. And besides, I botched my parents memory charm so while they're alive, it'll be a long recovery, it's a bit like they both have dementia, except there's a good chance they'll recover.

"That's my story, and I wouldn't regret any of it. But when I went to the hall of records to see what had happened to the others, people I had known inside the camps and outside the camps I found out what had happened after I left. When they found me missing and the dead guard, they locked the doors of the barracks I was in and set the building on fire. Four hundred people burned to death, that was the price of my survival, and I'm not sure I'll ever stop feeling guilty for it."

That evening Hermione went to the Hall of Records, the list of names was so vast tears threatened to come forward immediately. It wasn't until she reached the name of a girl who she had helped, a child who she had tutored in charms when she was a prefect that they started to fall. So many, almost every muggleborn she had known at Hogwarts, Dean Thomas, Lavender Brown, Zacharias Smith, and many more whom she had never known, never heard of and some she had, Gilderoy Lockhart was on the list. For all that he had been a fraud by the time of the war he was a helpless amnesiac in St Mungo's, there was no need to kill him, none at all.

The neat long lists bored into her mind and her memory. That night she went home to Ron's, "where were you I was worried?" and just burrowed into his arms weeping for hours.

The next day she wrote her first application to an international law firm and begun an accelerated language course, where, with the aid of magic, she was able to gain a passable fluency in French, Spanish and Italian very quickly.

It didn't take long for her to be accepted, and when she returned to England, to a prestigious ministry position, reflecting her impressive work in the international human rights courts. The first thing she did was place Umbridge under arrest for war crimes. She became an avenging angel for all those lost souls, insuring that a day of remembrance was set up for them, and all the victims of the war, as well as the heroes who had perished.

Through all her fortune and through all her success, Hermione never forgot, and eventually, equal opportunity laws were brought in at her initiative.

We will remember them.


End file.
